g of the air of the
dawning. He would not stop to breathe, he had reached the point in his
insensate fury when he could have flung himself upon the rapier's point
and felt it cleave his breastbone and start through his back with the
joy of hell, if he could have struck the other man deep but once. The
thought made him start afresh; he fought like a thousand devils, his
point leaping and flashing, and coming down with a crash; he stamped
and gasped and shouted.

"Curse you," he cried; "come on!"

"Do I stand back?" said my lord Duke, and gave him such play as made
him see the air red as blood, and think he tasted the salt of blood in
his dry mouth; his muscles were wrenched with his violence, and this
giant devil moved as swift as if he had but just begun. Good God! he
was beaten! Good God! by this enemy who would not kill him or be
killed. He uttered a sound which was a choking shriek and hurled
himself forward. 'Twas his last stroke and he knew it, and my lord Duke
struck his point aside and it flew in the air, and Sir John fell
backwards broken, conquered, exhausted, but an unwounded man. And he
fell full length and lay upon the heather, its purple blooms crushed
against his cheek; and the sky was of a sweet pallor just about to
glow, and the first bird of morning sprang up in it to sing.

"Damn you!" he gasped. "Damn you," and lay there, his blue eyes
glaring, his chest heaving as though 'twould burst, his nostrils
dilated with his laboured, tortured puffs of breath. Thereupon, as he
lay prostrate, for he was too undone a man to rise, he saw in his Grace
of Osmonde's eyes the two points of light which were like ruthless
flames and yet burned so still.

And his Grace, standing near him, leaned upon his sword, looking down.

"Do you understand?" he said.

"That you are the better sword--Yes!" shrieked Sir John, and added
curses it were useless to repeat.

"That I will have you refrain from speaking that lady's name?"

"Force me to it, if you can," Sir John raved at him. "You can but kill
me!"

"I will not kill you," said the Duke, leaning a little nearer and the
awful light in his eyes growing intenser--for awful it was and made his
pale face deadly. "How I can force you to it I have shown you--and
brought you here to prove. For that, I meant that we should fight
alone. Myself, I knew, I could hold from killing you, howsoever my
blood might tempt me. You, I knew, I could keep from killing me, which
I knew y